COVID

I wrote this for Facebook and rediscovered it today. I thing it bears repeating. 

I have been a teacher for forty three years and this distance learning is the hardest work I've ever done...harder than parenting three children under five while working full time...harder than holding down two part-time jobs and visiting my dad in the nursing home every week while teaching and acting as an assistant principal....harder than teaching AP US History, AP Government and AP Euro, all at the same time, while providing college counseling services for O'Hara grads.  It's HARD.  Teachers are frustrated.  Parents are frustrated.  Kids are frustrated.  But, after 43 years I know one thing.  We will get through this.  Our kids will be fine.  The children of Katrina, many of them who missed school for almost a year, are doctors and social workers and teachers and engineers and delivery men & women and police officers.  Is it hard to teach your kids while holding down your own job? For certain!  Is it hard to try and pretend that everything is okay when you're not sure how you're going to pay the mortage.  Absolutely.  Give yourself and all of those you love the gift of grace.   If a worksheet doesn't get finished, it's okay.  If your kindergartner melts down and refuses to do one more thing, it's okay.  If your high schooler goes on strike, it's okay.  If your middle schooler looks up all the answers for his virtual quiz on line, it's really okay.  We will all be okay.  Know that what you are doing has never  been done before.  We took an education system of both public and private schools and in literally two weeks turned the whole enterprise on its head while at the same time we organized hot lunches for families in need and cared for our own children and families.  Let's be PROUD of what we have done and what we are doing.  The kids will catch up.  Life will return to something like it was before, if not quite exactly as it was.  Let's keep going for a while longer, keeping people safe, especially the most vulnerable in our society.  Let's keep praying while our churches are closed because God isn't only there.  Let's keep loving and hoping and doing this very hard thing.  And, we will be better and stronger and richer in the things that really matter when it's over.  Grace is my prayer for all of you who are struggling (and for me as well).

 It's been a LONG time since I updated you, blog.  But, there's something about spring and my 66th birthday that tells me it's time.  My favorite season, I think, remains fall BUT spring is growing on me.  :)  There's something about the earth coming back to life that inspires me in my brand new 66th year and has rejuvenated my spirit.  I planted some bulbs last fall, not sure I was getting them deep enough, but they are up!  I cannot wait!  I tried some in a big planter but so far that has failed.  I will give them a big longer before abandoning that effort completely.  

And, I have accepted a new job.  I am excited!  I have applied for Social Security and Medicare and while all of that is a bit scary, I am ready for the challenge.  I still have to figure out a Medicare Advantage plan.  So much to do!

The Movie and the Cathedral

I had the honor of attending a Kansas City Film Festival showing of "When I Last Saw Jesse", a documentary entry about the disappearance of Jesse Ross on November 21, 2006, from the Sheraton Hotel in Chicago.  Jesse, and his brother Andy, had been students at O'Hara when I was the dean of students.  I remember Jesse as a bit of a quirky kid who was a solid student, a Boy Scout, a lover of music and some practical jokes.  He had close friends but he was not a member of the "popular crowd" and that suited him just fine.  A kid with red hair and freckles, his friends and family called him "Opie."  After graduation, Jesse attended UMKC.  There he joined the Model Union program, the organization that brought him to Chicago as a freshman in 2006.  And, in Chicago he simply vanished, disappearing after a late night session from the Sheraton Hotel.  The film featured interviews with Jesse's family and his OHS friend, Ralph Parker (who tragically died in a car accident in 2010).  Several former OHS teachers attended the screening as did Jesse's mom and dad and some family members, most of whom I did not recognize.  It was heartbreaking and sad and caused me to wonder anew, "what happened" and perhaps more importantly, "why did this happen?"  Jesse was clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time.  His parents have never recovered from their loss and the disappearance continues to haunt them and his family.  The great "why?" will always haunt me as well.  

And, then, yesterday, a Monday, I learned that the great cathedral of Notre Dame had burned.  Fortunately, it did not burn to the ground but the simple fact that something almost 1000 years old had burned, had been seriously and perhaps permanently damaged, rocked my world.  Cathedrals aren't meant to fall down; they were built to last, as a tribute to the God for whom they were built and for the people who did the building.  People don't last.  Relationships don't always last.  Most material things of this world do not last.  But, the Cathedral was something through which we could glimpse "forever".  It would always be there; I could visit it when I retired or when I had time or when I wanted to because it wasn't going anywhere.  And, suddenly, at the beginning of Holy Week, it's not gone, but it's definitely not whole either.  I'm not French and I've never visited Paris but somehow the loss of the Cathedral, like Jesse's loss all those years ago, makes me less certain of the world.  I who am always optimistic and confident am suddenly less so and I don't like it.  I like my world being stable and predictable.  Of course, friends die and move and jobs and circumstances change but people don't disappear without a trace and cathedrals don't fall down.  Except they did.  And, I don't like it.  

Some of My Favorite Sayings and Quotes

I am most definitely my father's daughter.  Dad had a host of colorful sayings that I can still remember.  You need that like a Hog needs Easter.  Nervous as a whore in church.  Up a creek without a paddle.  Out in left field, balls falling all around him.  And there were SO many more.

I love a pithy phrase and a good quote.  These are some of my favorites.

"It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission."  (I've run a LOT of my life using that simple rule which I first heard from Archbishop O'Hara's long time bookkeeper, Mary Quanty, when I asked her oh so many years ago if it was okay to dispose of several old adding machines that hadn't seen service since the late 1960s.)  Ah, she said, "no one will know and it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission."

"Trust, but verify."  Ronald Reagan

"Keep Swimming"  Dory

One that I recently discovered completely resonates with me.  "Love many, trust few, and always paddle your own canoe."  (Sometimes my penchant for independence drives my family and loved ones crazy, but long ago, I decided that "paddling my own canoe" was the only way I could be certain of arriving at my destination.  I learned this one the hard way as an Admissions Counselor for Rockhurst University back in 1982-1983.  One of my first assignments was the Catholic College week program in Omaha, Nebraska, and I was up there for my very first official visit at a college program at Mount Michael outside Omaha.  Since there were many of us, we were traveling together and we decided to eat first before arriving at Mount Michael.  Well, the food was late, we were late, Father Chris (I believe) was highly upset!  I always drove my own car from that point forward!)

"When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen:  There will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught how to fly."  Barbara J. Winter

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.  Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.  It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.  It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.  It will make or break a company, a church, a home.  The remarkable thing is we have a choice very day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.  We cannot change our past, we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.  We cannot change the inevitable.  The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.  I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.  And so it is with you.  We are in charge of our Attitudes".  Charles Swindoll

Hope is a golden cord connecting you to heaven.  This cord helps you hold your head up high, even when multiple trials are buffeting you.  Hope lifts your perspective from your weary feet to the glorious view you can see from the high road.  You are reminded that the road we're traveling together is ultimately a highway to heaven.  I am training you to hold in your heart a dual focus:  My continual Presence and the Hope of Heaven.  Sarah Young
(I have always thought that St. Paul perhaps had it wrong.  Love, hope, and faith abide and the greatest of these is Love.  For me, I think it's Hope.  It's what gets me up in the morning and keeps me going!)

Remembering Barbara Bush

It's been a while, blog.  I haven't really forgotten you, but I haven't felt the urge to write in some time!  I wish I could be like the diarists of old who each day took the time to write even a few lines.  Historians of our time will have a tougher time navigating the reams of paper that we will leave in digital form on Facebook, twitter, and instagram.  

And, then over the weekend I watched the funeral of Barbara Bush and read the many eulogies of her as wife of one president and mother of another.  The most moving tribute was a piece in the New York Times explaining that at her core she was a mother.  Jon Meacham, the historian and Bush family friend, called her the mother of the greatest generation and perhaps she was.

I am attracted to her story because in many ways it draws me back to my own past, my parents who were shaped by the Second World War and the 1950s that followed.  I am the same age as one of the Bush children, Neil, younger than George W. and even Jeb (which surprised me).  As a woman of her time, Barbara Bush inspires me.  Maybe it was her not so skinny size, her "I'll be damned if I color my hair", her outspoken (at times) advice to her large and I'm sure sometimes difficult family, her love of swimming, her passion for literacy, her sass, her style, her compassion.  She seems more real to me than some of the other first ladies.  Nancy Reagan, so distant, Rosalyn Carter, so southern and Baptist, Melania Trump, so foreign and wealthy, Michelle Obama, so smart and savvy.  Barbara Bush was someone that I could relate too.  She had that rarest of things, a strong political marriage that survived the death of an infant daughter and the raucous contest that is Texas politics.  She didn't much like to cook and from what I can gather, she wasn't so good at it either.  But, she seemed human somehow.  She was wealthy, yes.  She had a certain style.  She came from east coast money (at least some) and she married well.  But, what I most liked about her is that she felt comfortable, or so it seems to me, in her own skin.  She knew who she was and why she was.  As I commented on Facebook, she showed up and made a difference for good.  She's a worthy role model and one of my heroines in a world that desperately needs them.  Rest in peace, Barbara.  We've got this and your work, although not done, is in the hands of others, myself included.  We are ready for the challenge.  Would that we all make as much difference as I believe you did.

Post Election Reflection

Like many Americans, I woke today with a heavy and troubled heart.  Our newly elected President represents for me much of what is worst about our people and culture.  We have no guide but his own words and they are troubling.  Building a wall, banning refugees, attacking a Gold Star mother, making fun of women.....these are things that candidate Trump did because they played well with his base audience, primarily white men who have found themselves caught up in a world that is rapidly changing and that they feel is leaving them behind. (For historical reference this happened in the 1920s and it gave rise to the revival of the KKK and the worse features of fundamentalist Protestantism (Scopes Monkey Trial) and a resurgence of nativism. )  Now president elect, he has to find a way to be the leader of all of us and I'm not sure he is tempermentally suited or intellectually prepared for the task.  But, we are stuck with him.  And, so what to do?  I cheered myself with the fact that like all Americans, I got up and went to work as I do every day.  I posted some hopeful, optimistic thoughts and took comfort from the words of faith and courage that others posted.  But, I am fundamentally saddened and it may take more than a few weeks, days, months and much reflection before I can move from sadness to action.  I can protect the children entrusted to my care and do everything I can to dispel the ideas that Trump seems to embody, that it is all right to bully those less fortunate or strong than you, that it is all right to appeal to the worst in our character and not our best, that it is all right to fear those who are different from you. For my own sanity, I think I will try and walk more, cook more, knit more, read more history (it gives me great comfort); and, later, when I am a little less sad and more emboldened, I will find a way to help those less fortunate than myself.  I will remain engaged in politics and encourage our best and brightest minds to do so as well.  I will smile and hope and love and greet all I meet with enthusiasm and grace.  Tomorrow, because St. Paul had it wrong....love, faith and hope abound and the greatest of these (for me) is hope.  

Another New Years' Day

Welcome, 2016.  The year began quietly but sadly.  I learned that my former professor, and later, good friend, Jack Dudey, died on January 1st.  I had not known that he was sick since I had not talked with him in several months.  Over the years, he would call with his characteristic "bark".  I always knew who was on the other end.  His death ends a chapter for me in some ways.  Jack was my advisor at William Woods, someone who helped through more than one crisis of faith as an undergraduate.  I still remember a particularly difficult day as a student teacher.  I called Jack at his office and he told me he was going to be home after school, changing the oil.  I stopped by and sobbed while he changed the oil in his driveway.  After I had related my sad tale of teaching middle school students, Jack rolled out from under the car and said, "there, do you feel better?'  And, in fact I did.  Then, there was the day in February as a first year teacher.  It was President's Day, I had the day off, I was teaching at Camdenton High School, living at home, and thoroughly miserable.  I spent the day in Jack's office where he listened and suggested that perhaps I should go back to school.  That summer I enrolled in a reading specialist program at MU, but when I didn't enjoy that either, Jack suggested a talk with then head of the geography department, Jesse Wheeler.  That conversation changed my life and introduced me to a discipline that has shaped the way in which I see the world.  Over the years, I would call Jack whenever I had questions or moments of doubt.  He was unfailingly supportive and encouraging.  With him I could talk about anything, from what behavior was "normal" for toddlers to whether it really was a good idea to become a principal at age 60.  Jack was a good friend and a terrific listener, someone with whom you could be yourself, however mysterious and allusive that "self" remained.  I regret that I didn't see him or talk with him these past few months.  Rest in peace, teacher, friend, mentor, advisor.  A poem for you by John Schlatter.

I am a Teacher

I was born the first moment that a question leaped from the mouth of a child.
I have been many people in many places.
I am Socrates exciting the youth of Athens to discover new idea through the use of questions.
I am Anne Sullivan tapping out the secrets of the universe into the outstretched hand of Helen Keller.
I am Aesop and Hans Christian Andersen revealing truth through countless stories.
The names of those who have practiced my profession ring like a hall of fame for humanity.
Booker T. Washginton, Buddha, Confucius, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Leo Buscaglia, Moses, and Jesus.
I am also those whose names and faces have long been forgotten but whoses lessons and character will always be remembered in the accomplishments of their students.
I am the most fortunate of all who labor.
A doctor is allowed to usher life into the word in one magic moment.  I am allowed to see that life reborn each day with new questions, ideas, and friendships.
An architect knows that if he builds with care, his strucutre may stand for centuries.
A teacher knows that if he builds with love and truth what he builds will last forever.
I am a warrior, daily doing bagttle against peer pressure, negativity, fear, conformity, prejudice, ignorance and apathy......